


The Boundary You Leave Behind (The Fading Shoreline Loop)

by theladyscribe



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 14:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4483316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/pseuds/theladyscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan does not tell Caspian that she will never return to Narnia. She does not tell him that she intends to forget everything about this place.</p><p>She does not tell him how much it hurts to say goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boundary You Leave Behind (The Fading Shoreline Loop)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harborshore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harborshore/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Journey to Make, Horizon to Chase](https://archiveofourown.org/works/141607) by [harborshore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harborshore/pseuds/harborshore). 



> Title pulled from "Harbor" by Vienna Teng.

1

When the Pevensies say goodbye to the newly-crowned King, Susan does not cry. Instead, she holds her head high as Caspian bows to kiss her hand.

She does not tell him that she will never return to Narnia. She does not tell him that she intends to forget everything about this place.

She does not tell him how much it hurts to say goodbye.

 

2

"Does Mother know you're borrowing her lipstick?" Lucy asks from the doorway.

Susan doesn't turn around, only briefly glancing at her through the mirror before focusing back on perfecting her mascara.

"She does," she answers after she's certain the mascara has set. She leans back, finally turning to look at Lucy. "Michael is taking me to a play; Mother is the one who suggested the lipstick."

Lucy frowns, but she doesn't have a chance to say anything because Ed steps up behind her.

"Michael's here, Su. You might want to hurry, or Peter will start interrogating him."

Susan stands, smoothing out her skirt and giving it a bit of a twirl. "How do I look, Ed?"

"Like the queen of a foreign land," he assures her.

Susan tries to ignore the way Lucy purses her lips as she swans past on her way to where Michael awaits her.

Michael holds her hand for the third act of the play, and when it ends, they walk to a small cafe for coffee and biscuits. When Michael walks her to her door at the end of the evening, he kisses her hand and asks when he can see her again.

It isn't quite being courted by kings and princes, but it's close enough.

 

3

Susan doesn't cry at the funeral for her family. She sits with her aunt and uncle, who both openly weep through the entire service, sobbing even more loudly whenever Eustace is mentioned. It is the only time Susan has seen her Aunt Alberta show any emotion more expressive than distaste at the thought of eating sausage.

Susan stares stoically into the middle distance, reminding herself that she was a queen, that she has weathered such tragedy before, that she has stood at the front of a chapel full of weeping mourners many times.

She does not let herself think about how this time is different.

After the funeral, they are driven to Harold and Alberta's home, where the other families from the village have put together a luncheon. The food looks nice, but it has no flavor, everything tasting like ashes and iron in Susan's mouth.

As soon as it is polite, she excuses herself upstairs, to the guest room where she and Lucy used to stay when they visited. It is her room now, she supposes, and will be "until everything is sorted," as Uncle Harold said when she first arrived after the accident.

Susan changes out of her stiff wool dress and into her robe. The sun is just beginning to set, and she sits on the chair by the window.

"Hey!" There's a clatter of noise by Susan's head, and she looks across the alley to see Harry ("the Pynchons' ruffian son," according to Uncle Harold, who seems rather incensed that they share a name). Harry has an odd look on his face, as if he's torn between smiling and looking suitably mournful for the day. "D'you want some chocolates?"

Susan has talked with Harry a few times, mostly complaining about the heat when the Pevensies visited the Scrubbs in the summers, but she's never spent more than a few minutes in his presence. Now she finds him waiting for her most evenings, sitting on the fire escape across the alley, with candies and chocolates and, once, a packet that turns out to be a pair of earrings.

"I saw them and thought of you," he admits, shy for the first time.

"Thank you," Susan breathes, holding the packet close.

 

4

Barbara Dickerson—"Call me Babs, please"—lives across the hall from Susan in the dormitory at Blackstock. She has a pleasantly round face and a startlingly good right hook, which Susan witnesses her use on a boy who tries to feel her up when they go out to a bar one evening.

She also curses like a sailor, which gets her in more than a little trouble with the dorm mother in Mercy Hall.

"It's the dumbest shit I've ever heard, sending us to bed without any supper," Babs says as she devours the rolls Susan snuck from dinner. "We're not _kids_ , god."

Susan hums in agreement. They're _not_ children, it's true, though sometimes it feels their professors treat them as if they are. Susan thinks about the way that Professor Hobbs sometimes dismisses her questions as the stuff of "an overly-imaginative mind," launching from there into a lecture on the importance of Aristotle's _Poetics_ in Greek theatre or on the influence of Sparta on Athenian politics.

"Was it something I said?" Babs asks, pulling Susan from her thoughts. Babs has an eyebrow piqued in question, but Susan shakes her off.

"It's nothing," Susan assures her. "Now, tell me about the party Marcus and Milly are hosting next week. You promised."

 

5 

Jack doesn't remind her of Caspian, not even a little, which is part of why Susan likes him immediately.

She meets Jack when she goes home for the summer, back to England and the stuffy room at Harold and Alberta's. He works in Harold's office, a "well-mannered young man," according to Harold and echoed by Alberta, who met him at the company Christmas party.

Susan confirms this sentiment when she meets him at the office's summer tea and charity cricket tournament. Jack is very polite, and very attentive, and hardly a week passes before he asks her to accompany him to the fair in Milton.

They've been stepping out--going steady, to use the term her American friends at Blackstock use--for three months when Jack asks her to marry him.

"You don't have to say yes right away," he assures her. "And we don't have to marry tomorrow, but I'd like to, Su. If you'll have me."

Susan says yes, and Jack slips the simple ring he offers onto her finger. They both look down at her hand admiringly, watching the way the small diamond glints in the light.

 

6

The engagement lasts a year, spent mostly on opposite sides of the world, and perhaps it is the distance that near-daily letters and two international phone calls (one on each birthday) simply cannot span that brings Susan to call it off. Or perhaps it is because she comes home to stay with Harold and Alberta for the summer and finds herself correcting Jack when he talks about her lessons. Or perhaps it is because Jack tells his mum that he expects Susan to stay at home, that at least all her schooling will be good for tutoring their children.

When she says something to him, he tells her, "I don't want a wife who's cleverer than me. It will make me look bad at the company."

She doesn't think he's surprised at all when she returns the ring. She thinks he might have been a bit relieved.

Susan goes back to Blackstock as soon as she is able, returning to the States early. She cables Babs and Brigitte to let them know she'll be in, and she makes arrangements to move into the dormitory in Mercy Hall before classes begin.

When she arrives, even Blackstock feels different, though, like it has changed, too. And when she finds a door that she is certain was not there last week, Susan takes a deep breath and walks through.


End file.
